This application includes a microfiche appendix of 47 sheets of microfiche having 2,772 frames. A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by any one of the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent files or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
This invention relates to a medical diagnostic ultrasound system and method. Ultrasound systems generate a sequence of images representing a region of a body. Different processes and hardware are used to generate the images. Many of the processes and hardware components are divided into ultrasound subsystems. Each subsystem is typically implemented with an ASIC. The ASIC is designed to perform a particular process. The processes are determined in part as a function of the system architecture or ASIC based design.
The subsystems are connected to a back plane or common structure to form the ultrasound system. The ultrasound system typically is mounted on a large wheeled cart.
The present invention is defined by the following claims, and nothing in this section should be taken as a limitation on those claims. By way of introduction, the preferred embodiment described below includes a method and system comprises a scan converter that uses a re-programmable logic device provides flexibility for converting data from an acoustic grid to a display format. A set of instruction codes is provided for implementing the flexibility. By changing the instruction codes, the scan conversion process changes. A single memory stores the incoming data where read and write operations are performed sequentially. The same memory may be used for storing the scan converted data. A field programmable gate array is preferably used to scan convert the data and is programmed differently for different modes of operation.
Further aspects and advantages of the invention are discussed below in conjunction with the preferred embodiments.